Tenerife… It was at that time that I had the urge to communicate what music meant to me. And there I was, buying records… and then a mixer, and I tried my hand at being a DJ, and I worked on the radio… And I wanted to have a rock band to melt my feelings with music and others. But that remained a fantasy, a dream. And so I started writing poems, lyrics, songs inspired by other songs and by… read more

Writing just for the sake of writing is worthless. You have to write when you are driven to bleed into the paper. ¿Cry? Yes, I would like to. But I don’t know how. I only know how to cry writing. Crying words in silence. Crying Words is an introspective monologue, a narrative that has something to say to everyone, and yet is intensely personal. A journey, an awakening, it is Manu… read more

Manu Rodríguez October 2013 ‘Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.’ Stephen Hawking BRIEF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES I was born in Sevilla in 1967, in a modest and traditional family. My mum was a primary school teacher and my dad a policeman. I was the first of four brothers and a sister. This might sound like a regular story but the peculiarity is that my father´s father, and my… read more

Taking the idea from ‘The writer’s journey’ by Christopher Vogler, I suppose that if I consider the act of writing as a journey I could say that to me writing seems like an endless journey of self discovery. Every time I put pen to a blank page of paper, or fingers over the computer keys, I start travelling. I travel through myself, travel through my understanding of that part of me that I… read more

I have been writing, drafting and redrafting hundreds of pieces of poetry and prose. To me, as I usually intend to do as a writer, the main intention for creating these pieces is not to create beauty for the sake of it but to explore, organise and put a certain order to my thoughts, feelings and emotions, as well as to understand myself as a whole and to value the fact that I am alive, to b… read more

In social conversations (at parties, at work, in group meetings; with friends, family and relatives…) we talk and listen, discuss and tell our opinion. Then we share points of views and concerns that are relevant for the participants. In a helping conversation the act of communication must change and ‘active listening’ is what matters. Then the other is the one to listen to with in-dept… read more

How can I find my YES How can I find my NO How can I find my THAT’S ALL RIGHT How can I find my THAT’S WRONG The GOOD ones, I mean The GOOD ones I should know Like a leaf knows its sprig Like a tree knows its roots Where can I find my TIME Where can I find my PLACE Where can I find my LAND Where can I find my HOME The REAL ones, I mean The REAL I should stay on Like a child knows his mum Lik… read more

Reflecting on my history, it’s not so long ago that I wrote in my notebook that ‘I’ve been growing like a transplanted plant’. I want to come back to this idea now. My seed was sown, and germinated in one land. Then, uprooted twice. And then, taken back to the original soil. But it was not the same as before, it couldn’t be… So one day, feeling trapped and isolated, a stranger in my… read more

That small grocery shop beside the School of Communication That ham, and fresh slices of tomato, in a bollo sandwich That bar ‘La Parrapa’ That woman behind it with that masculine energy That dream of mine Those Cherry Cok… read more

Sand castles by the seashore My sick and deformed body The salt and iodine on the skin The sticky suntan cream protection The rubber ring The waves of that enormous universe And the powerful sun, toasting the bodies toasting it all And mum and dad always looking after taking care The marine heat The sea The sand Sand everywhere The towel was never clean The sun umbrella The chairs And then back… read more

A voice I hear that voice That voice that tells me what to do That voice that pushes me out That is growing, gathering experience, getting old with me. It’s a shame one learns how to really live only when one is getting older. Life should give you the opportunity to live backwards. And yet fly more wisely. read more

We wanted to be together, and we needed advice. I knew that if we married everything would be solved. And by everything I mean papers, bureaucracy, and the right to stay together by law. She was Latin-American, and I was European. I was a legal immigrant, with all the rights on my side. She wasn’t. But I didn’t want to marry, and much less because someone obliged me. It’s not that I… read more